Note 478 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

Peter Martyr, in 1493, states that cosmographers had determined that Hispaniola and the adjacent isles were Antillae insulae, meaning doubtless the group surrounding Antillia on the old maps (Decades, i. p. 11, ed. 1583); but the name was not popularly applied to the new islands until after Wytfliet and Ortelius had so used it (Humboldt, Examen, ii. 195, etc.). But Schöner, in the dedicatory letter of his globe of 1523, says that the king of Castile through Columbus has discovered Antiglias Hispaniam Cubam quoque (Stevens, Schöner, London, 1888, fac-simile of letter). In the same way the name Seven Cities was applied to the pueblos of New Mexico by their first discoverers, and Brazil passed from an island to the continent.